When people aren’t buying cars, freezers, or televisions the makers slow production; when customers stay home, retailers cut staff and lower inventory; when the grass gets too long, we cut it. But we cannot always follow such practical techniques when the demand for recyclables is down, as it has been for several months. We cannot simply tell our residents and businesses to stop producing waste, and recycling is not simply a fad we practice when we can profit from our efforts. Recycling is a lifetime habit that can benefit every community, every municipality, and every home. The cuts by makers of hard goods and the downsizing by retailers and service companies bring difficult days for many people. Is there any way we can continue to deal in recyclables without hurting our communities?
Do we save our recyclables for the day when the prices go up? That seems practical, but are there limits to how much we can save? Some communities are simply storing their excess recyclable waste at local sites that have been unused so far. If your community is in the crowded states on the coastal edges of the country, there may not be much suitable empty space. In the more central areas there seems to be more space, so some communities are just storing their scrap metal and plastic waste, for example, until the market improves and the price is right again.
A word heard in reference to this problem is “sequestration.” That word has specific legal and ecclesiastical connotations, but it is used here, in waste management, in the sense that sequestration is the same as temporary storage. Excess recyclables would be sequestered…set apart, isolated, secluded.
Sequestration also seems to imply that government action may be needed, perhaps to supply places for the storage, perhaps to do anything to prevent the recyclables from going to the landfill. Sequestration of wastes would keep them available (and safe) until they could be sold to the reviving markets.
The sequestration, dumping, or storage ground must be acceptable, too. As Wes Muir of WM Recycle America (the recycling arm of Waste Management), pointed out to me, some recyclables have a definite shelf life. WM Recycle America handles a broad range of recyclable commodities, including metals, glass, electronics, plastics, and fibers such as newspaper, office paper, and cardboard. We cannot simply dump them all for an unstated amount of time, even underground in unused mines, as some people have suggested. Fibrous materials offer other challenges than metals, so everything cannot be treated in the same way. Storage is less of a problem for those with plenty of space available, but it would be wrong to imagine that the biggest companies or counties involved in collecting and marketing recyclables are immune to the ups and downs of the market, or the challenges of storing specific materials.
Whose Responsibility?
“Who would do the sequestration?” asked John Hadfield, recently retired after 30 years at the Southeastern Public Service Authority in Virginia (about a decade as its executive director). He has been a busy member and officer of SWANA, too, and is presently the organization’s president. “Would the collector do the storing or sequestration, and who would pay for this added cost? I see that cost is often more important in the absence of regulatory requirements, and that recycling goes down the drain when times are tough, as they are now. Until recycling our waste becomes an inherent aspect of the American psyche, it will be commonplace to see folks throwing in the towel when economic issues are tough.” Hadfield says he suspects that unprocessed recyclables are treated, for regulatory purposes, like a municipal waste, with that concept more likely in single-stream collection programs. “The underlying component of the idea to sequester our recyclables is that we should not be landfilling anything in the future. I absolutely agree with that. We are not making any more land resources and it is absolutely stupid, wasteful, and should be blasphemous, that we allow anything to be disposed of in this way.” Those are stern, practical words from a person with great experience in waste management. Many professionals agree with him.
Concerning safety and public health, as we must, the wisest municipal sanitation districts make sure their space for storage is correctly prepared and lined. One gentleman with whom I spoke is executive director of Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority in Pennsylvania. Jim Warner’s group started storing its excess metal wastes in the last months of 2008, having no issues with the EPA because of the liners already installed. He mentioned 1,700 tons stored at one place and thought it would be a temporary situation.
The big difference I noticed between that Pennsylvanian solution and most other counties with whom I corresponded was that Lancaster County knew what it was going to do if the recyclables exceeded their demand temporarily. Now it is after the event of the 2008 downturn in recyclable demand. The time to determine what will happen for the rest of this year and next year is now, not when it happens and the media send out panic signals and pictures. “Just-in-time” management has had its proponents over recent years, but it does presume that the preparations for that “just-in-time” success have been made well ahead of time.
Jim Warner gave a presentation to the SWANA Senior Executive Seminar in January that revealed some careful planning, budgeting, and suggestions for reducing costs in waste management. Those aspects of waste management can play a crucial role in your community’s success. A recent survey noted that, while about 55% of communities agreed lack of funds was their greatest challenge to solving public works problems, almost a third said it was the traditional, never-change attitude of “community leaders” that could be responsible for no progress. An interesting and disappointing aspect of the SWANA meeting mentioned above was that very few attendees showed much interest in the concept of storage as a way to stabilize market supply, and not much interest in the end markets for the materials at all.
The amount of space available for sequestration or temporary storage will dictate how much you keep and how long you can keep it. An interesting question that came up more than once (and was never answered, always carefully pushed aside) has been: Why don’t some communities, with large areas of unused, suitable land, profit from having other, less land-fortunate communities pay them to store? It seems to be a political issue and one that most sanitation department professionals cannot bring forward without some broken toes or bruised egos in their community organizations. It is reported concurrently that much of the traditional, steadfast thinking about no-change in waste management is based on that foundation of historical strength…ignorance of the real issues.
One thing is certain: Consumers will not stop producing waste. And they will expect somebody else to process it. There are many consumers—my family and I among them—who will not suddenly stop producing waste but who are certainly open to using products that can be recycled or that are made from recycled materials. The national average for people helping in recycling is reported to be around 35%—the percentage who will bother to separate their garbage for collection so that the recyclables can be recycled. That’s not perfect, but it’s encouraging.
Educating all Involved
Whatever the market conditions for recyclables, there is still a need for more education for consumers and manufacturers alike. There are still too many consumers and communities that do not participate in recycling programs. Further education about the benefits of recycling everywhere would also help consumers to understand that their placing recyclables at the curb for collection is only the first step in the recycling process. Consumers also should understand that it is as important to buy products made from recyclables as it is to feed the curbside containers. The makers of products must make sure that there are outlets for the materials they would like collected, and they must be willing to buy back and reuse recyclable material. There must be a role for governments at all levels in stimulating the use of recycled products. What we are saying is that everybody should be involved, in his or her own little territory, if you will. Professionals in waste management should strive to have their communities buy recycled products. Tell your people about the symbol of three arrows traveling in that never-ending circle. Encourage neighbors, local newspapers, and television stations to put out the message that recycling is good for your community and that buying products with recycled content makes good sense for residents and their tax dollars.
Many complaints and stories about recyclable garbage piling up refer to paper and cardboard. (They make good pictures, too.) One professional from New York with whom I spoke suggested that the amount of paper waste would be greatly reduced if magazines and newspapers went only to consumers who read them. Some of my neighbors don’t read our biweekly local paper, except for the headlines and obituaries, but they do scan and clip the supplemental insert ads from grocery and hardware stores. Yes, we do have tons of paper thrust upon us, don’t we? The reduction of recyclable materials may be at the consumer end of the problem. What to do when the recyclables pile up and seem unmarketable tends to be at the other end, with municipal waste departments or private waste collection companies.
Although the low market for recyclables is currently an urgent problem, most professionals in waste management see that the problem itself is long-term and that we must seek solutions for the next decade as well as for next month. In some countries the efforts to lower the amount of recyclable waste are being focused increasingly on the producers of the materials, not so much on the users. Several countries are trying to use public power to get manufacturers to use less wrapping and packaging so that the consumers will have less to throw away. There’s a fund of good sense in that approach, isn’t there, but how is it enforced? We all have our pet enemies in this area of manufacturing and waste. I detest those hermetically sealed packages of stiff plastic that are hard to open, often sheltering such items as electric shavers, batteries, or other electronic products. The plastic is for protection of the product (and we would howl if the products arrived damaged to our doorstep or retail shelf) but there does seem to be a lot of package for a little product. I’ve also cut my fingers on the packaging, but that’s probably because I am a klutz when roused.
A comment still heard (but less often, it seems) from municipal professionals is that their public doesn’t care about recycling, so what’s the point of trying to run an efficient system? This attitude was contradicted recently in Savannah, GA. When all the news was about the terrible state of recyclables nationwide and worldwide, Savannah asked its residents to participate in a recycling program. The first results were excellent! About twice as many households as sanitation officials expected set out their black-and-yellow recycling carts. “Participation was projected at 30% to 35%, in line with the national average,” noted Stephanie Cutter, sanitation director. “Actual participation on our Monday and Tuesday routes was almost double that projection.” A good level of recycling would help reduce the city’s reliance on its Dean Forest Road landfill; the mixed recyclable materials go to a sorting center in Fayetteville, NC. An interesting observation on this city’s first recycling effort was that the recyclables were clean, which seems to indicate that the citizens were paying attention to what they could and could not recycle. So let’s not always blame our public for failures in our own planning or efficiency.
Planning Before Is Better Than Blaming After
Let’s accept, then, that the American public is willing to recycle, sometimes enthusiastically. The bigger challenge will always be the disposal of the recyclables collected. The end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 will probably be known as panic periods, with articles and news reports all over the country about huge piles of garbage building up. (And why doesn’t somebody else do something about it?) As sales of just about everything plummeted, piles of waste materials grew. It was a grand time for blaming somebody else. The Chinese! The Indians! Anybody outside our home territory. They’re not taking as much as they used to, because they are not manufacturing as much.
Recently I saw a photo from Hong Kong that showed empty containers piled up like skyscrapers because they had nothing to carry, and several shots of ports in America, Asia, and Europe, where cars were lined up by the thousand because the people who were supposed to be buying were not doing so. All the goods that use recycled materials are suffering from the global economic downturn, so the need for those recycled materials has been less.
The dark side of this situation is that some unmarketable recyclables may be dumped on places that don’t want them but cannot refuse them. There are, happily, few people with whom I have spoken who believe that we should pitch our unwanted wastes on somebody else’s (usually less prosperous and influential) country.
The most practical responses I have received from those involved in the selling of recyclables have come from people who planned for the cycle of demand. Put another way, the most competent people seem to be those who have made themselves experts in marketing as well as collection. Imagine a company where the production workers were excellent, whose products were excellent, but whose business failed. Why would that happen? Marketing, or lack of it. There have probably been thousands of excellent products that have never reached consumers because they were poorly marketed. That does not include advertising and promotion only. It includes pricing and availability. Have you ever bought your second choice because the first choice was unavailable? The companies who buy recyclables want their materials in an orderly fashion; they want them available when they need them. In the recent deflation of the recyclable bubble there was too much available. Are you ready now for when the situation improves and the companies to which you hope to sell your recyclables are willing to pay well for them? That’s why some communities are storing their recyclables today. They are waiting for the right time to sell them at a reasonable price. Let’s see how true experts are handling the situation.
“In the past, we have seen recycling flourishing where it makes economic sense,” notes William Flower, speaking for Republic Services Inc., a nationally involved company whose whole business is the management of waste. “Unfortunately, some recycling efforts continue to struggle because the markets simply don’t exist or are still underdeveloped. Customers and lawmakers must understand the economics of recycling and work to develop and improve markets for recyclable material. Republic is committed to recycling and will work with customers to determine the best way to collect and process recyclable items. In most cases, the customers will need to pay more to cover higher costs of service and lower commodity prices.”
“The biggest issue we face today is the cost of collecting and sorting recyclables and the faltering price of the commodities we collect,” continues Flower. “The prices of equipment and labor have all increased dramatically over the past three years. As a result, the cost of providing services to our customers has increased. We work in a worldwide market for recyclables.
“Today, the majority of the material that we collect and process is sold in the US, China, and India. As the demand and prices for commodities have fallen, we have been negatively impacted and must increase costs to the customer. When the markets no longer exist for a commodity, Republic believes that we need to adapt our processing to the current market realities. We understand that, if there is no market, we cannot recycle it as recycling companies can only continue to sort, buy, and store for so long. Many recyclers have limited spaces to continue collecting and storing commodities that are not moving out of their yards. There are, therefore, limits to this practice, known as sequestering.”
Commodities stored for long periods can attract vectors. Excess material storage can lead to safety hazards such as blind corners, tight aisles, and high bale stacks. It also causes reduced operating efficiencies because of the double handling caused and the longer travel distance for forklifts. “Best efforts must be taken, but there are limits,” advises Flower.
Republic makes every effort to move materials and keep them moving during economic slowdowns. “When we hear a market is softening, we often need to increase quality. In these market conditions, buyers not only offer less money for the product, they can also demand top quality. The lower-quality material either gets rejected or does not ship at all. The downside of higher quality is typically lower recovered volumes, with a higher percentage of the stream being diverted to landfills.”
Perhaps It’s our Attitude That Must Change
I spoke with WM Recycle America when the panic about fallen markets was at its height. “We are already seeing some movement,” advised Wes Muir for WM Recycle America. “We expect improved movement as the month progresses. There have always been cycles in demand for recyclables, and probably always will be. The years 1994 and 1995 saw some good days; then prices dropped. In 2003, there were gains in the prices we could get; then it has gone down again. Paper mills have been closing, for example, and some of the Chinese mills, too.” He was discussing the normal roller-coaster motion of the recyclable markets. It could have been any sector of any industry. The obvious difference is that WM knew what to expect and how to deal with it. Marketing recyclables is a business, and must be run as a business, not as an occasionally profitable pastime. None of our communities compete with WM in size, but we can imitate the commitment to efficiency and doing things right.
“The recycling commodities market will always be a cyclical business, and RecycleBank is committed to increasing participation,” says a spokesperson for that company. “The commodities market will recover at some point in the future. The haulers we work with are still able to sell their commodities today, albeit at a lower price, because of long-term agreements and relationships.” Talk about hitting the nail on the head! Long-term agreements and relationships have enabled efficient recyclers to sell their materials. Are municipal waste managers as committed to agreements and relationships? I mentioned above that Lancaster County knew before the downturn what to do if the downturn came; that’s how we should all be planning. It’s what most businesses do: plan for the good times and the bad.
RecycleBank runs recycling systems for cities that let residents earn points, based on the amount they recycle, that they can redeem at retailers. “Now that cities really need to save money and people are looking for a way to get disposable income, we’re at a unique time in our growth curve,” comments Ron Goben, cofounder and chief executive officer of RecycleBank. The company takes a cut of the savings that the cities get from reducing how much trash they send to landfills. “While the economics of recyclables have seen a dramatic downturn, RecycleBank’s goal is to keep materials out of landfills. Demand for recyclables will continue, even in a sluggish economy such as we are experiencing. What will happen is that they will become more localized for the end market, which can make recycling more sustainable, while supporting local jobs, local manufacturing, and local economics. Our company offers municipalities and haulers peak efficiencies for routing, minimizing the high cost of collection and transportation. Peak efficiencies are important all the time, but they are critically important now.” It’s an interesting way to manage waste and one that is gaining strength nationwide.